I do not find this well documented, and so am documenting the remote reset method for Ubiquiti bullet M2 models XM and XW.
So I will record my findings here and my testing suggests the procedures are different.
We will focus on remote resetting the bullet m2 devices rather than the local reset.
For the bullet M2 XM
- unplug the power over ethernet cable to the bullet m2 XM
- push the remote reset button on the power supply
- plug in the power over ethernet cable
- and hold the remote reset button
o for soft reset: hold the reset button for about 20 seconds
o for hard reset hold the button for about 40 to 50 seconds
For the bullet M2 XW:
- with the device powered
- and hold the remote reset button
o for soft reset hold the reset button for about 20 seconds
o for hard rest hold the button for about 40 to 50 seconds
This has appeared to be repeatable during testing.
And it allowed me to recover my bullet m2 XM device which has a broken local reset button!
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Remoting resetting ubiquiti bullet M2 XM and XW models
Sat, 01/09/2021 - 11:01
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Remoting resetting ubiquiti bullet M2 XM and XW models
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Someone more familiar with the hardware internals can give you more details, but as I understand it the "remote reset" capability varies quite a bit depending on the Ubiquiti hardware and firmware version you are using. I'm glad you figured out how to accomplish what you needed on your older Bullet XM/XW devices, but it may not work for everyone.
From the UBNT community posts, only the 24V 1.0A PoE accessory unit has a reset button, and those units are not always shipped with purchases. In other words, it's very rare these days to get an included PoE unit with a reset button. The UBNT forum says, "By pressing the reset button on the 24V PoE injector, a small 24V current signal is introduced in the data pair for the Ethernet connector. On the UBNT M series devices there is a special circuit that detects this signal and triggers the Reset to Factory Defaults." So only radios with this special remote reset circuit are capable of responding to the button press.
Here's an older AREDN forum post on this topic: https://www.arednmesh.org/content/poe-reset-circuit-ubnt
Probably a large percentage of deployed AREDN radios don't have the luxury of AC power, but are battery/solar powered with DC passive PoE units. I know that's true for all of mine. Hopefully your procedures will help others with Bullet XM/XW devices that are similar to yours.
I documented it because I have seen a series of discussion on resetting bullet M2s in AREDN and other forums.
The bullet M2s did not ship with POE power supplies and many bought the Ubiquiti supply.
And my problem has been that there is little clarity on the reset procedures for bullet M2s in particular and the reset button on the bullet M2s is quite fragile and seems to break often.
When one places one of this family of units high for providing range, they are often hard to get to (I have a buddy in this situation), so I am puzzled how one would manage units without this feature.
I plan on getting several rocket M2s in the near future and I hope they support a remote reset procedure.
"Remote Reset" can be a very useful feature, but it can also introduce a possible issue. Many on the UBNT forums have reported weird behavior where their radios seem to automagically revert to factory default on a regular basis. They've discovered that if the PoE units or cables are damaged or if water gets into the line or if their cable picks up stray RF, it can cause shorts or voltage fluctuations which trip the "remote reset" circuitry in the radio. One of their most reliable solutions is to disable "remote reset" in the firmware, which causes the radio to ignore these stray signals. I guess there are always trade-offs with anything.